• On April 1, 1700, English pranksters begin popularizing the annual tradition of April Fools' Day by playing practical jokes on each other. It's thought that when the start of the new year moved to Jan. 1 with the adoption of the Gregorian calendar, some people unwittingly continued to celebrate it in late March through April 1, and they became the butt of jokes and hoaxes. • On March 30, 1867, U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward signs a treaty with Russia for the purchase of Alaska for $7 million. The deal was ridiculed in Congress and in the press as "Seward's folly," "Seward's icebox," and President Andrew Johnson's "polar bear garden." • On March 31, 1889, the Eiffel Tower is dedicated in Paris. The Tower was almost demolished when the lease on the land expired in 1909, but its value as an antenna for radio transmission saved it. • On April 3, 1948, President Harry Truman signs off on legislation establishing the Foreign Assistance Act of 1948, known as the Marshall Plan, to aid in the economic recovery of Europe after World War II. • On March 29, 1951, in one of the most sensational trials in American history, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are convicted of espionage for their role in passing atomic secrets to the Soviets. They were executed in 1953. • On March 28, 1979, the worst nuclear accident in U.S. history takes place at the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania. Due to technical malfunctions and human error, the reactor came within an hour of a complete meltdown. • On April 2, 1992, a jury in New York finds mobster John Gotti, nicknamed "the Teflon Don" for his ability to avoid conviction, guilty on 13 counts. FBI official James Fox was quoted as saying, "The don is covered in Velcro, and every charge stuck." © 2016 King Features Synd., Inc.
NUGGET OF KNOWLEDGE In 2013, a California couple unearthed 1,400 gold coins stored in tin cans buried in their backyard. It was later revealed that $30,000 worth of similar gold coins had been stolen from the U.S. Mint in San Francisco in 1901. No one was ever convicted of the crime. Today the coins' estimated value is $10 million.
My friend thinks he is smart. He told me an onion is the only food that makes you cry, so I threw coconut at his face.
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